Lights Out
by MKproot
Summary: He never would have thought that it was his co-workers...his friends...his family that were unknowingly robbing him of air, of time. They were the ones who drove him to the brink of insanity, though they couldn't have known that just by watching him. They were the ones who broke him. Set after Grave Danger, Warrick is the one to tell Nick about the webcam feed.


Nick Stokes never thought he'd be grateful for a few moments to himself after being thrown into a solitary confinement for over a day, but the constant attention from nurses, doctors, his family, his friends was starting to get to him a little. Exhaustion was settling in his body, replacing the adrenaline he felt from the joy of freedom. The shock of everything was finally fading away, and his body was beginning to feel normal...well, minus the welts all over his skin from the ant bites, which he didn't realize were so bad until now, his first trip to the bathroom in over a day.

He takes a deep breath as he splashes some cold water in his face, wishing it would just wipe away the red spots that remind him of the biting, the burning, the itching. He stares at his reflection in the mirror, his heart pounds as he struggles to connect the image of the reflection to himself. The man in the mirror is a stranger, scarred by events that were out of his control. The face in the mirror is covered with welts, with reddened cheeks and puffiness near the eyes. The hair is disorganized, sticking up in all different directions from a mother's hands brushing through it. The eyes are dark, tearful. Broken.

This stranger could not be Nick Stokes, because he is not broken. He endured. He survived. He's _alive_.

He tries to smile at the broken man in the reflection, to try and impart some of that strength to the mirror, but the corners of his mouth twitch as his lips begin to quiver. He takes a sharp breath and turns back towards the hospital room, he had just finished crying he wasn't going to start again.

He thinks about turning the light in the room off and taking a quick nap before Grissom comes back to debrief him on the case, but as he exits the bathroom he finds another visitor, though the visitor is not an unwelcome one.

Warrick Brown was sitting, waiting, fiddling with something in his hands before bolting up at the sight of Nick stumbling back towards the hospital bed. Though he tried to hide it with a big smile on his face, Nick could still sense the concern that plagued Warrick's eyes.

"Hey, there he is! Heard you were finally awake," Warrick puts his arm around Nick, helping him back towards the bed. Nick hasn't quite gotten the hang of walking again, his legs still feel light and shaky. "How you feeling?"

"Feelin like we shoulda done two outta three after all," Nick wheezes, conscious of the fact that his throat is still dry, his voice is barely present. He gulps down an entire cup of water, but it still doesn't seem to help.

"Speaking of which, here you go."

Warrick opens Nick's hand and places something small, cold. Nick looks at it, it's the coin they flipped.

"I think we got all the bad luck we could handle for now."

Nick laughs, a smile spreading across his face. It isn't long before Warrick starts chuckling as well, and soon the two are laughing together, at the absolute absurdity of the past twenty-four hours. They talk about everything and nothing for a few minutes, cracking jokes at each other, and for once Nick finds comfort in the fact that Warrick doesn't seem to be walking on eggshells like everyone else has around him. But he can't shake off the feeling that they are both dancing around the questions that throb in Nick's head. He knew he could find his sense of humor again with Warrick, but he hopes he can also find some answers.

"Listen, Rick, I gotta know, and Grissom didn't wanna tell me after I woke up...how'd you guys find me?"

The smile slides right off of Warrick's face, and his eyes seem to darken.

"We don't gotta talk about that now, bro-"

"That's exactly what Grissom said. Spill it, man. Who did this?"

"Hey, you hungry at all? I could go grab something better than the shitty hospital food-"

Warrick begins to stand up, as if he were going to leave.

_No no no don't leave me again_...

He feels a sense of deja vu as a desperate sob escapes his body, an echo of the broken man he saw in the mirror just minutes ago. Just hours ago, he was lying on his back, grabbing Warrick's hand, longing for a human connection, pleading for release from his prison cell.

And now here he is, still on his back, finding that his lips are quivering again, that Warrick is looking at him with tears in his own eyes, feeling like he's still surrounded by glass walls and the hundreds of ghost ants still crawl across his skin…

"_Please_," he begs, a shiver creeping down his body, he says it in the exact same tone as he did hours ago.

Warrick takes a deep breath and hooks a stool closer to him to sit on.

"Okay. We were able to track down your location from a couple different things...but really, it was the...fire ants that helped us narrow down your location," Warrick speaks slowly, letting the words settle in the air, carefully choosing his words. "You were buri-You were at a tree nursery, one that the kidnapper's daughter worked at."

"Did you catch the...the guy that-that did this?"

"He's dead. Grissom can tell you that part of the story."

A pause, Nick tries to empty his mind, shoving the rage and sadness and fear as far away as he can, just like he does at the more horrific crime scenes he investigates. He's bracing himself for the confirmation of a theory he had while in the box, for the answer that he did and didn't want to hear quite yet, but he knows the question will eat away at him just like the ants did...

"How...how did you guys know about the ants?"

Another pause, Warrick stares at his friend, his mouth hanging open. His lips begin to move, a slow, deep breath blows out of his body. He's bracing himself, too, for an impact that he wishes he wasn't the one to deliver.

"We received a ransom note on a flashdrive. It gave us twelve hours to deliver one million dollars, or else…"

_Twelve hours? _Nick thought to himself. _But I was in there for twice that…_

"It...it also gave us a-a button to press. To let us…"

Warrick fell silent again, looking away, suddenly interested in the floor. His hand falls out of Nick's, and goosebumps begin to rise all over Nick's body, the realization of how the button may have been a trigger for something...like a light switch...

"To let you _what, _Warrick?" Tears sting Nick's eyes, his voice is shaky, but firm.

"Every time we pressed the button, we'd be sent to a live feed...that showed us-showed us you." Warrick's eyes were still looking at the floor, and Nick's eyes were now looking at nothing in particular. His body began to float, he feels like he's falling backwards. The lights turn off, and he's engulfed in darkness. Before he could shout in surprise, the light turns on again...only the light is at his feet.

On some level, he knew that someone had to be watching him. That someone was controlling the light that would turn on every two minutes, and stay off for varying amounts of time, no longer than a minute or so.

Nick had nearly forgotten just how _annoying_ the light was, turning on and off and on and off. How painful it was, to be given air to breathe, to keep him alive, only for it to be taken away every time the light turned on. How intense the brightness was, flooding the box with light, allowing him to see every individual grain of dirt packed against the glass walls surrounding him. How _hot_ the box became, so hot that his skin became glued to the glass from the sticky sweat that emitted from his dehydrating body.

He thought it was just his kidnapper, adding another layer to the hell Nick was trapped in. He thought it was some sick form of interrogation, that maybe the kidnapper wanted Nick to confess to something that he knew nothing about. He thought, maybe, the person who put him in here was just a sick, deranged asshole who wanted to see Nick suffer just because he could.

He never would have thought that it was his co-workers...his friends...his _family_ that were unknowingly robbing him of air, of time. They were the ones who drove him to the brink of insanity, though they couldn't have known that just by watching him.

Warrick startles him when he finally speaks again, and Nick finds himself back in the hospital room, after taking a trip back into an overly-lit glass prison cell. His vision focuses on his friend, who seemed to have taken a similar trip to his own personal hell.

"The feed would last-"

"Two minutes," Nick finishes, nodding his head towards the watch laying on the bedside table. "I kept track."

"Nicky, we...we didn't know that the fan…" Warrick's voice is soft, strangled. A tear slides down his cheek, and Nick grabs onto his friend's hand once more.

"It's okay, Rick. You guys couldn't have known."

Warrick nods, shutting his eyes, sandwiching Nick's hand in between both of his own.

"Besides, if I didn't shoot it out, then the box wouldn't have...and the ants wouldn't have…"

Nick gulps, nausea swirling in the bottom of his stomach. He tries to keep his focus on his friend, which doesn't help at all. He hasn't seen Warrick so distraught, not since his grandmother passed. He tries to think of something to say, some sort of quip to lighten up the mood.

"Hey, good thing I'm such a good shot, huh? 260 outta 300, remember?"

He forces a chuckle, but Warrick remains silent. He tries to think of something else to say, to tease his friend, get him to crack a smile because the darkness inside of him is bad enough, he can't bear to see it spread to his friend as well. Warrick releases his hands from Nick's and rubs his red, watery eyes. Nick shifts uncomfortably in the bed, trying to distract himself from crying as well.

He's about to open his mouth and make some joke about Grissom enjoying watching the ants when Warrick speaks again, his voice is deep, hoarse, exhausted.

"I...I watched you do it."

"Do what?"

"Shoot that damn light," Warrick growls.

Nick's heart stops for a second, remembering how briefly-_very_ briefly, he had pointed the gun at himself before aiming it at the light and firing in the same second. The image floats in his mind of his face, projected on all the computers in the lab, gun nuzzled against his chin, and can only imagine what that must have felt like for anyone watching.

"I thought you-" Warrick spats out. "You scared the hell out of me, Nick."

Blood begins to boil under Nick's skin, why is he so pissed off? He knew Warrick wasn't angry with _him_ but it sure as hell felt like it.

"Yeah, well, didn't really have a choice, did I?" Nick mutters, unable to mask the disgust in his voice.

"We just wanted to make sure you were okay!"

"Then why did it take you so fucking long to find me?" His voice cracks as he shouts it, snapping Warrick out of his anger as Nick allows the floodgates to open, and the water burns out his eyes.

"You s-s-said the ransom note guh-gave you twel-twelve hours," he sobbed. The air suddenly feels thin, like it did in the box. "I shot...that-that _fucking light_ after fourteen!"

He could feel Warrick place a hand on a shoulder, his fingers gripping Nick's hospital gown. The pressure doesn't offer any comfort to Nick, his own fingers can't seem to find Warrick's, he grasp on that connection they shared in the hole is slipping away. Instead his fingers find the red welts on his arms, he struggles to fight the urge to scratch them.

"I almost...almost did it. Fuh-First when I was gonna shoot the light and then...right before you…You found me…"

"I know, it's okay, it's okay," Warrick soothes him, speaking in that same, low, soft voice he had in the hole. He stands up, pulling Nick's body closer to him, reminding Nick that he's allowed to sit up, unlike a few hours ago. They cling to each other in a tight embrace, and Nick finally feels the comfort he was seeking.

Nick takes a sharp inhale of breath in an attempt to calm down, tries to slowly exhale but the air gets stuck in his throat. His body heaves as he tries to take control of the air, for a moment, the air is gone.

"_Breathe, man_, it's okay,"

He nods and they release from their hug as he catches his breath. His sobs begin to fade, but tears still slide down his cheeks, avoiding the welts on his skin, like a twisted version of pachniko. The air clears, and he takes a few steady, deep breaths.

"I would have done it," Warrick says, haunted by the memory that he and Nick share of Nick covered in ants, pointing the gun at his chin when the dirt was removed from the lid of the box.

Nick looks at Warrick, shaking his friend to maintain eye contact. The sadness he was feeling subsided, in its place, anger was boiling back to the surface.

"Don't say that," he spits out.

"It's true, man, I woulda...Long before you-"

"Nah, you wouldn't have. You're way stronger than me, bro. Smarter, too, you probably would have figured out the fan thing sooner than I did, and then we could have found you faster…"

Nick's voice trails off. Warrick nods at him, having finished Nick's train of thought for him.

"He told me to do it, Warrick."

"Who did? Do what?"

"The guy...guy on the tape. The guy who...he, uh, left me this-this tape. Told me I was gonna...die...in that box. Told me to just-" He gestures the motion with his hand, and then falls silent.

"But you didn't. You're stronger than that. At this point, you're basically bulletproof, like Superman or somethin'."

"Does that make you Louis Lane?"

Warrick laughs, harder than he did before and Nick can't help but laugh with him. He's glad their conversation ended on a high note, because as their laughter died down, a red-headed nurse came in to inform Nick and his friend that visiting hours were over. Warrick stays until the nurse grabs him by the shoulder as she's on her way out after making sure Nick had everything he needs for the night ahead.

"Aight, see you later, Supes. I'll be back tomorrow with some food."

"Bring a beer, too, Ms. Lane, I could really use one."

"I heard that!" the nurse calls out. "Lights out in five, Mr. Stokes."

"You-You can call me Nick!" Nick blurts out. Warrick turns his head, smirking at his friend's feeble attempts at flirting.

Nick shakes his head and smiles before heading to the bathroom one final time, finding himself looking once again at the reflection of a broken man in the mirror.

But this time, he is able to recognize the broken man, it's _him_. Nick Stokes. He is broken, sure, but that's okay. He'll survive, he'll endure, just as he always does.

After all, he is bulletproof.


End file.
